When her shift at the eatery was finally over, Monroe walked straight home. She only had an hour or so to make dinner before her siblings got home. Kathy had convinced her to be strong and prove to everyone that Theo didn’t to her matter anymore, especially to him and Betsey. She was going to Ruthie’s party. But that wasn’t until Friday night so she had two nights to get over him. And look up that mysterious website.
She was trying to decide between chicken salad casserole and bean burritos when she entered her house and noticed that everyone was already home. They were all in the kitchen making fried chicken and a big mess. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry, or happy. She decided happy when Laken appeared at her side and said the would attend to the floor, stove, and countertops after dinner and that she should just relax.
Monroe was heading to her room to check out www.SPIder.log, when she received a text. It was from Kathy and it said: “Meet me tomorrow at 3 pm at Pepper’s. I have something to tell you.”
She texted back immediately to remind Kathy that she had a double shift because Jackie was sick. Her phone vibrated before she made it to her room.
“I’ll just tell you at the party then. I don’t want Marco or your siblings to hear.” said Kathy’s text.
Monroe sat down in front of her computer and clicked her mouse on the Google Chrome button. Hopefully the search wouldn’t take too long. She typed in the URL then pressed enter. The effect was instantaneous and the sight popped up in front of her. But it was blocked. Securely.
“So, I got my schedule in the mail today!” said Ellie excitedly. “I have calculus first hour and biology third hour! Sadly, I have English second hour, but I have psychology eighth, so it’s okay!”
“I happen to love English,” said Wilder raising his eyebrows. “Writing helps me express my feelings.”
“I don’t have problems with expressing my feelings, so I don’t need any help,” said Ellie happily.
“Obviously,” laughed Laken as she took a large bite of fried chicken. Monroe glanced toward the door of the master bedroom with worry. Laken noticed her expression and quickly said, “I already did it, it’s okay.”
As Monroe turned back to her meal, she thought she saw a figure running past the window. She shook her head and took a bite of chicken. She was probably hallucinating. She took a few more bites, finishing off her chicken, then she stood and took her plate to the sink where a loud noise stopped her abruptly. It sounded as if it was coming from inside and outside at the same time. She went outside to see what was going on and her siblings followed her.
She knew she had closed her window before coming down to dinner, but it stood ajar. She called out a few words, but none of her questions were answered. She told Wilder to keep watch outside, then she and her sisters ran inside to check the rooms. She already had a pretty good idea of which room the noise had come from, but she wanted to check it out on her own, so she sent Ellie and Laken off in the opposite direction. When she arrived in her room it was empty other than her many possession that were strewn about the room.
The first thing she noticed was her recently cleaned laptop keyboard. The smudges that had covered the keys when she left for dinner had been wiped off. Then she looked up at the screen. She checked the URL, but it was the same. Whoever broke into her house must have come for a purpose, but the only thing he did was unblock the website. What kind of purpose was that? Was he trying to help her? How did he know about S.P.I.? How did he know about her?
She figured Wilder caught him, or at least saw him, so she walked outside to ask im but he wasn’t there. What if he had been kidnapped? She started to panic, but she decided she should look for him inside the house. She found him sitting on the couch in the Living Room, looking like nothing had just happened. He was watching TV.
“Did you catch him?” Monroe asked her brother, relieved that he was okay.
“Monroe,” he said looking at her, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There was no one out there.”
That’s when she knew something was wrong.
Late that night she took a quiz. It was hard for her to make sense of that night’s events. She knew she wasn’t hallucinating though, because Laken and Ellie were also confused. Even Wilder’s behavior was difficult to understand. He wasn’t usually hard to talk to, but now he was taking everything so seriously.
She had no idea what the website was for before she opened it. The homepage said something like “Welcome to the Internet Headquarters of S.P.I.” The only other things on the screen were a link for a quiz and a white textbox. She didn’t know what the textbox was for, so she clicked the link. Three questions appeared in front of her.
- Are you curious?
- What is your name?
- What is your favorite color?
Underneath each question was a textbox. Monroe entered the information into each textbox and only lied on the second one. Yes, Jackie Wheeler, and gray were her answers. She expected more questions, but the only option at the bottom of the screen was a FINISH! button. She clicked on it hesitantly, then the screen went absolutely blank. She paused in anticipation, but nothing happened, and finally she just escaped from the site.
The next morning before work she tried to get back onto the website, but the URL no longer existed. That part was confusing. She tried again after work, but it still didn’t cooperate. She was suddenly interrupted by a knock on her bedroom door. She turned around just as Wilder opened the door. His face was extremely grave, like he had just found out that someone had poisoned his dinner.
“Are you okay?” Monroe asked, immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“Is Ruthie having a party tomorrow night?” he asked without looking at her.
She stood to feel his forehead. “You’re freezing. I’ll go make you some tea.”
“No,” he said stopping her. “Just- when is Ruthie’s next party?”
“Yeah it’s tomorrow night,” she told him, alarmed. “Why?”
“Don’t go,” he said.
“I promised Kathy I would go and… why not?”
“I just don’t have a good feeling about it,” he said, finally making eye contact. his face was totally serious. It looked like he’d been thinking about it for quite a while and had finally decided to talk to her about it. When she didn’t answer, he turned around and walked out of her room. “Fine. Okay.”
The next day, Kathy came to see her at Marco’s. She made sure Monroe was still coming to the party.
“Well…” said Monroe, thinking about her brother’s warning.
“Mona, you promised! Plus,” she said suddenly lowering her voice, “I have something to tell you, remember?”
“Okay, but next time when I say no to begin with it really, really means no. Mkay?”
“Sure, but you should really try to have more fun. It will relieve you of stress.”
“Later,” said Monroe, smiling.
***
Ruthie Cornwell was adding some finishing touches to the decorations for her party. Despite what everyone told her about her parties, she still tried to outdo herself every time. The last cake had come out oven and they would frost it when they were done frosting the penultimate one. All of them had different shapes, colors, sizes, and designs, but all of them looked amazing, and would taste amazing when it came time to eat them.
She was surprised to hear her father’s office door swing open and her father step into view. It was a great surprise though.
“Dad! I didn’t know you were home!” she exclaimed, running into his arms.
“Hey, Ruthie! I’m so glad to see you. I just got back a few minutes ago. They let me leave early so I could come to my wonderful, beautiful daughter’s party,” he replied.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully.
“I have just one question. Do you have a friend named Monroe Quentess?” he asked
“Um, yeah. She was invited. Why?” asked Ruthie curiously.
“Oh, she just has an opportunity,” said her father.
“Dad, she has family. She has to take care of them, not hide from them. She’s the oldest, her dad just died, her mom is out of it and they have no money to spare. You guys should put that question on your stupid quiz,” she said angrily.
“They think she’s what they need. The missing piece of the puzzle. If she is, they’ll pay her more than they pay me.”
“Fine, but I’m not helping you. Thanks for letting me know that you can’t be at my party.”
“I am going to be there!”
“But you’ll still be working so it doesn’t really make a difference, does it?” Ruthie asked as she walked away to check on the balloon bunches.
Ruthie’s were always the best, but no one was expecting them to get even better. The one that night was undoubtedly the best of all of them, the best of the best. Monroe had met Ruthie’s mother, who was an active part of all her parties, but her dad was never there. Her mother greeted each guest, calling them all by name, as if they were her own friends. Everyone, including Ruthie, knew her mom was awesome, the best mother anyone could ever want.
This time was different. This time Ruthie was the only who didn’t think her father was just as cool as her mom. She slightly wanted to expose him because of what he was always doing to her, but she was trusted by him and his employers to keep his work and their’s a secret. She didn’t want to breach the agency’s trust, and she couldn’t expose her father without exposing them, so she just held her peace and ignored everyone’s excitement with and compliments to her father. Besides, they might just think that made him cooler, that he was a “spy.”
Halfway through the party, Monroe went to the refreshment table to get a piece of cake, where Kathy found her. She was dragged into a closet by her best friend, who proceeded to tell her a very interesting story about her neighbors.
“So my mom was baking bread and she was feeling sorry for the Pederson’s, ‘cause their son’s funeral was last week and they found out for sure that he was a druggie, so she brought them a loaf of bread and Mrs. Pederson was so grateful, she invited us to eat with them on Wednesday and I knew you would love the story she told us when her husband was in the bathroom, so I texted you as soon as I got home.”
Here Kathy paused for breath, so Monroe took this time to comment and show some interest. She didn’t think she would appreciate any story told by Mrs. Pederson. She and had started to learn Polish, so they could converse with her (Her had grown up in Poland and didn’t know much English), but Monroe had given up when she had learned that most of her stories were boring stories of the people she had known as a little girl in Poland. Kathy was now fluent in Polish.
“You must have eaten really early,” said Monroe.
“It was lunch. My mom called me about two minutes after I left Marco’s. Plus, we stayed pretty late,” she said before continuing her story. “Anyways, you remember how Alaric, their son dropped out of college and the teachers always tried to scare us with made up stories about what happened to him? Well, apparently his parents saw him two days before his body was found, walking out of a storage building. He was wearing a fancy suit and he looked perfectly healthy. His mother called out to him in desperation and he turned to them and froze. She knew it was him, so she tried to run to him, but he ran away.
“Then when they saw the body, they admitted that he looked a lot like their son, he even had their son’s ID, but he was super unhealthy and he was wearing rags. They paid for a DNA scan and a fingerprint scan and both came up negative. The druggie in that coffin wasn’t their son. But the funeral was the next day and they didn’t want to cause an uproar, so they only told the guy’s family who he really was. That was why no one knew that one family who was crying on the left. His gravestone will say his actual name, but no one will know who he really is until it’s finished and put up.
“So the main reason I knew you would love this story is because we were all super obsessed with finding out what really happened to him all through highschool, but we never found out. This is our chance! Tomorrow I want to go check out the mysterious abandoned storage building. Will you come with me?”
Monroe was, of course, surprised by the story. Kathy was right about her interest. Finally Mrs. Pederson had a story to tell other than the lifestory of some boy she danced with around the maypole. “I’m in.”
They walked out of the closet as unsuspiciously as was possible.The rest of the party was basically a storytelling contest, since Monroe wasn’t staying for the sleepover. Her siblings didn’t know she would be home that night, but she wanted to check on them and keep them from doing something bad.
Ruthie’s mom won the prize for scariest story. Monroe was afraid to walk home alone in the dark, though, so she asked Ruthie’s dad for a ride. He agreed it was probably a better and safer idea anyways.
“Wouldn’t want one of Alec Pederson’s buddies coming after you,” he smiling at her. She smiled back, slightly. If he only knew what had really happened. She didn’t even know all that had happened or what it meant. She was going to find out a little sooner than she expected.
“Thank you for giving me a ride, Mr. Cornwell,” said Monroe as she sat down in the front seat.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Please call me Shelton,” said Mr. Cornwell. As if on cue, a strap flew over her restraining her to the seat and a piece of cloth was shoved into her mouth. She tried to scream, but it was no use.
The drive to wherever they were going was long and silent. When they got to a seemingly abandoned storage unit on the opposite side of Detroit her restraints were loosened. Her first order of business was to take the strap off, open the door, and jump out of the car. Finally, she took the cloth out of her mouth. She tried to run away, but she ran into someone just a few feet from the car. She looked up into a young, handsome, and familiar face. She was confused.
“Oh guys, she’s perfect,” he said scanning her. Then he looked back at her face and she realized who he was. She opened her mouth to say something, but was lost for words. He spoke first. “Hello, beautiful.”
Finally she regained control of her brain and mouth. Sort of. “Your mother is worried about you.” That wasn’t what she had meant to say, she was thinking something more like “Excuse me? I’m running away. Move!” It didn’t matter though because what she said disoriented him and she had her chance. He looked at her in bewilderment.
“My mother?” he said.
“Yes, she’s a very nice Polish lady with great stories about all her Polish boyfriends and none about her husband,” said Monroe choosing a different direction and making sure she wouldn’t be trapped there.
Alaric Pederson paused to think about what she’d said and a pair of giants passed him in an attempt to catch Monroe. They took a shortcut through an alley and appeared right behind her on the street. They each grabbed one of her arms and pulled her all the way back to the storage building. They had to stuff another piece of cloth in her mouth somewhere at the beginning of their strenuous journey.
Monroe was seriously doubting herself. How had she gotten into so much trouble? After all she’d been through to get there, they were suddenly debating throwing her out like the garbage. She had to say something in her favor, or those cuts and bruises would be worthless, meaningless.
“Excuse me! I had nothing to do with this whatsoever, other than fighting off your attack and taking some dumb internet quiz. I already know one of you is hiding something,” here she looked pointedly at Shelton Cornwell, “and everyone else is just confusing me! What in the blubbering universe is S.P.I.? Also, unless you’d prefer a broken nose, unlock my cuffs!”
“I say we keep her,” said a man to my left. “She’s definitely what we’re looking for.”
“That’s the problem! We can’t let them know that we need her,” replied a man behind her. “Whoever sent her is obviously trying to trap us. That or rejoin the agency. It might even be him.”
“Let’s just ask her what happened,” said a disembodied female voice. “I’m sure she’ll tell us. She seems honest and she probably has nothing to hide.”
“So now you want my life story,” said Monroe blandly.
“Would you rather get out?” asked the man behind her crossly.
“Okay, fine.” She told them everything she remembered about the past few weeks, including her father’s death and her breakup with Theo. By the time she was done, they were all looking at her with what seemed like pity. She didn’t want to be pitied.
“You know what,” she began, “I don’t think I want to be here anyways. You can throw me out now.”
“Um… we’re sorry for everything you’ve been through,” said a man directly in front of her. He hadn’t spoken the whole time, just observed her behavior. The others seemed used to it, because when he didn’t respond to them, they just shook their heads and continued. His voice sounded so reassuring, she almost believed it. But then her head throbbed and she remembered how she was manhandled all the way to that room, and probably on his orders.
“We understand your loss and disappointment. My men should have checked their manners when they brought you down here.” At that he glared at two of the men in the room, then glaring at another, he said, “Shelton should have been a better supervisor.”
All of the men he had turned to looked down in shame and embarrassment. It looked like they wished they’d been nicer now.
“However, my men aren’t used to escorting young girls, you must understand that. They usually handle enormous middle aged men. I’m sure they meant you no harm. I know you’re probably not feeling up to it and this is probably a lot to ask from you, but we want you to join us.”
Monroe smiled for the first time that week. “So you aren’t going to kick me out?”
“No,” said the man, gesturing to the man behind her to take off her handcuffs, which he did reluctantly.
“Well then, I have a question,” said Monroe rubbing her wrists to get the blood flowing.
“Ask away.”
She paused for a couple seconds, then asked in a hesitant voice, “What are you guys?” Or more importantly, I’m assuming, what is S.P.I.?”
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